Weather program for FS9

[Per Alm]

Hello from Learsim!

The work on our Learjet flightdeck is progressing nicely. We intend to use FS2004 for a couple of years until hardware catches up with FSX requirements. I´m not interested in framerates around 15! I want to be able to use AI traffic, and also authentic airport addons and they often put quite heavy demands on the processor as you all know.
I saw the poll on avsim.com or was it simflight.com!? some time ago and still most of the simmers use FS2004. I´m not very surprised. I´m tired of framerates beeing an issue, so yes we will stick with FS9 for some time yet.
For sure we´ll use FSX sooner or later.

Until then I need a good weather program for FS2004.

Any suggestions? Any advise concerning weatherprograms and framrates?


Regards

Per Alm

[ryanf]

Hi,

I use ActiveSky and I have found it to be very good.

Weather modelling i.e. winds, pressures, temps at various altitudes is very good. It also comes bundled with a graphics package that replaces alot of the default FS cloud textures and will even load them for you automatically depending on the type of weather.

cheers,
Ryan.

[BlackWidow]

When i was flying FS9 I also used Active Sky. I highly recomend that program.

[Paul Thomas]

I'm still flying FS2004 and Active Sky really is the program that makes the weather.

[rt72]

I use Active Sky 6.5 with FS 2004 and agree with the others. It's great.

[Michael Carter]

I've never tried it, but this isn't the only site where it receives good reviews. I've always been pretty satisfied with real-world downloaded FS WX, but now that I have a system that can handle more, I might try this Active Sky.

Question: If I check WX from the Storm Prediction Center and see a line of thunderstorms forming, can I expect to take off from an airport near this line and actually see it 40 miles away at altitude?

Will I see the CB rising and anviling with the accompanying lightning in the distance from this line of storms?

How are the pressure changes and wind direction changes? Those have always been a sore spot with me and FS downloaded WX. Will I still have to use FSUIPC for pressure smoothing and wind shear?

How does this program react with Reality XP's WX Radar?

[Per Alm]

It seems Active Sky 6.5 is the weather program to go for.

How does it affect framerates?

Is it possible to adjust any parameters to reduce processor load?

Thank you all for your replies!!

/ Per Alm

[ryanf]

Hi Per,

I run it on a separate computer via WideServer/WideClient and I have never seen it affect the FS frame rates. The biggest load I think from it is when it downloads and initiliases the weather. I only do a single download at the beginning of the flight and then let AS "project" the weather changes using its own algorithms.

My FS machine was (since upgraded slightly) an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ with an NVidia 6800 GS and 1 G memory and it held 30 frames/sec no problem. Scenery sliders about mid-way. The AS computer also runs PM FCU and PM MCDU software and is an Athlon 64 3000+ with 512 MB memory.

I never saw any performance issues with it.

cheers,
Ryan.

[ryanf]

Hi Boeing Skunk Works,

It seems in general that AS does model pressure and wind changes well. It takes the weather reports it downloads from its own servers and then extrapolates or interpolates the weather, inserting pseudo weather stations as necessary to give a pretty good coverage of weather. It also extrapolates the weather upwards, this giving fairly well modelled wind and pressure changes at varying altitudes.

Finally, it simulates weather change even if you don't keep downloading the up to date weather.

Regarding how well the clouds are represented, it comes bundled with Active Sky Graphics which is meant to give pretty good cloud textures. I have not tested thunderstorms with it but I am generally happy with the cloud detail.

I think you should visit their web-site and you can get more info there.

www.hifisim.com

Also, there is both a version for FS9 and FSX.

cheers,
Ryan.